About Us | Invisible Dust

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The mission of Invisible Dust is to encourage awareness of, and meaningful responses to, climate change and environmental issues. We achieve this by facilitating a dialogue between leading visual artists, creative technologists and scientists.

Climate change

Visibility plays a key role in trying to gain an understanding of the need to live sustainably and dramatically reduce climate change.

Artists have many ways of making things visible and, particularly since the Land Art movement in the 1960s and 1970s (such as the ephemeral works of Richard Long and Robert Smithson) have responded to changes in the natural environment in a variety of forms.

How can people understand their own effect on the environment when the resulting gases disappear into the sky? Since the industrial revolution there have been huge gains to society but also the creation of many of the gases that are now poisoning the earth. Invisible Dust brings together artists, technologists and scientists to help illuminate these consequences and bring a sense of something human and fantastical to often very invisible problems.

Milestones

2019

Surroundings with Humber Museums Partnership was awarded £547,000 for three years 2017-2019 by Ambitions for Excellence from Arts Council England.

2018

Became a National Portfolio Organisation of Arts Council England in 2018.

2016

Kasia Molga’s Human Sensor Project produced by Invisible Dust won the Oxygen Award at Respirations 2016 in Paris.

2015

Invisible Dust was one of two organisations in the UK to receive the Sustaining Excellence Award by the Wellcome Trust for our work and organisation of £450,000 2015-2018.

2014

Alice Sharp, Invisible Dust Director won the Guardian PEA (People, Environment & Achievement) Arts Award 2014.

2013

Invisible Dust was a finalist in the 2013 Sustain’ magazine awards in the Communications category, other nominations include Land Securities and J. Sainsbury.

2012

In 2012 Invisible Dust won the Lord Mayor of London’s UK Sustainable City Award presented for ‘outstanding contributions to enhancing air quality’.

Alice Sharp

Artistic Director

Lucy Wood

Associate Art Science Producer

Adam Cooper

Executive Director

Jean Appleyard

Finance Manager

Cathy Gale

Development Manager

Ed McGovern

Associate Science Producer

Jeanine Griffin

Associate Curator

Adelaide Bannerman

Associate Curator

Rachel Taylor

Associate Curator

Xixi Zheng

Communications Manager

Laura Rolinson

Administrator

Feimatta Conteh

Environmental Sustainability Manager, Manchester International Festival

Magnus Johnson

Senior Lecturer in Environmental Marine Science

Kane Cunningham

Artist

Catherine Thornborrow

General Manager at Royal Court Theatre

Fiona Fieber

Head of Learning and Participation at SPACE Studios

Lacey Glave

Senior Digital Manager at London College of Communication (UAL)

Ana Stanic

International Lawyer who specialises in the Environment

Latest Projects

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Available now in Scarborough and Whitby Sea Songs is a sound art project inspired by North Yorkshire’s marine heritage and wildlife and takes the form of two audio walks – one in Scarborough and one in Whitby. The project is created by sound artist Rob Mackay an...

Sea Songs Soundwalks

About Living Nature Living Nature was a three-day event series produced in collaboration by Invisible Dust and Flourishing Diversity in partnership with the British Library and Synchronicity Earth. Through talks, discussions, screenings, and listening sessions, we spent ...

Living Nature

Sound artist Lucia Scazzocchio from Social Broadcasts has created a series of podcasts platforming local voices. These short ‘audio postcards’ include the voices of local people, mixing their local, long term knowledge and expertise with scientists, artists, conserva...

Wild Eye Audio Postcards

AN EXCITING NEW OUTDOOR ART AND NATURE PROJECT FOR THE NORTH YORKSHIRE COAST Wild Eye is an inspiring nature and art project that brings together leading artists with great opportunities for people in the Scarborough and Whitby area and visitors to observe and engage with t...

Wild Eye

What is shaping how you think about the planet’s future? Forecast is Invisible Dust’s new online programme exploring answers to that question. Bringing together artists, scientists, and change-makers from across the globe, Forecast makes space for ref...

Forecast

Echoes of Disruption, 2021 Digital video, 18 min. Courtesy of the artists Echoes of Disruption is video entry 11543.1 from the laboratory log-book of time-travelling researchers, with journal notes narrated by an Artificial Intelligence program. Having travelled back to ...

Dubmorphology – UnNatural History Commissions

love letter to the mystery (wavertree park) Frances Disley (born 1976, based in Liverpool, UK) Love letter to the mystery (Wavertree Park), 2021 Digital video, 13 min 41 sec, Courtesy of the artist Frances Disley’s sculptures and film-works are a response t...

Frances Disley – UnNatural History Commissions

hiber nation 20/21 Tania Kovats (born 1966, based in Devon, UK) in collaboration with Benjamin Wigley (born 1979, based in Nottingham, UK) hiber nation 20/21, 2020-21 Digital film, 9 min 28 sec. Courtesy of the artists and Parafin Gallery, London In this new...

Tania Kovats – UnNatural History Commissions

The mouth of the ground Gözde İlkin (born 1981, based in Istanbul, Turkey) The Mouth of the Ground, 2021 Video, 13 min 33 sec. Courtesy of the artist and artSümer, Istanbul Gözde İlkin drew inspiration for the newly commissioned work on view at the Herbert fr...

Gözde İlkin – UnNatural History Commissions

Christina Agapakis, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg & Sissel Tolaas / Doug Aitken / Angela Brazil / Gerard Byrne / David Claerbout / Mat Collishaw / Dorothy Cross / Frances Disley / Dubmorphology / John Gerrard / Alex Hartley / Andy Holden / Gözde İlkin / Tania Kovats / Michael L...

UnNatural History – A major new exhibition exploring natural history and climate change

Watch back Forecast’s events You can watch videos from Forecast‘s evolving online archive here or on YouTube. Scroll down the page or click on the links below. Latest events What’s next for our planet and our health? (Panel discussion, 1st July)...

Forecast Watch Back Page

Still from ‘E Kū mālo`elo`e (To Stand Firm)’, Ahilapalapa Rands 2021 “Where I’m from, we walk backwards into the future. Everything known, everything that has happened so far is what we face. Behind us is the unknown. Where we are going.” We’re ex...

‘E Kū mālo`elo`e (To Stand Firm)’ – Ahilapalapa Rands

Still from ‘Woven Time: A Girdle of Fig Leaves’ by Adam Chodzko, 2021 “Woven Time: A Girdle of Fig Leaves” is a video in the form of a dream premonition. In dialogue with a particularly lovely patch of mud visual artist Adam Chodzko speculates about what art mig...

‘Woven Time: A Girdle of Fig Leaves’ – Adam Chodzko

At a time of such fragility and uncertainty, we present our first FORECAST art commission ‘Forecasting: Interesting Worlds‘. Created by acclaimed Chinese artist Fei Jun in collaboration with 13 co-creators from across the world, this new work asks us to consider t...

Forecasting: Interesting Worlds – Fei Jun

Dark Interludes Grief expands and contracts temporalities. The breath in deliberately occupies space The pause elongates the moment The release amplifies a remembering All to be repeated in a ritual of remembering, and remembering, and… To be enveloped by the...

Dark Interludes – Michelle St Anne and Julie Vulcan with the Living Room Theatre

Note bookings are now closed as the event is passed. However, we will be resharing content with our newsletter subscribers over the comings weeks – so do ensure you are signed up! Return to Forecast’s homepage Individual Event Info Friday 5th March P...

Forecast Event Programme Details

What is shaping how you think about the planet’s future? To launch our new programme Forecast, we reached out to 50 people across the world to ask them that question: “what is shaping how you think about the planet’s future?...

What is shaping how you think about the planet’s future?

Invisible Dust, in collaboration with Humber Museums Partnership commissioned Juneau Projects to develop ‘Shoreline, Skyline, Treetop Messenger’ – a work inspired by North Lincolnshire Museum’s natural history collection, focussing specifically on its collection of moun...

Juneau Projects – Shoreline, Skyline, Treetop Messenger

A time to be alive to the vulnerability – and vitality – of the natural world In partnership with Scarborough’s Victorian-era South Cliff Gardens, ‘Garden to Garden‘, explored the changing ways we see, hear and experience nature; all through the len...

Feral Practice – Garden to Garden

16th November 2019 – 23rd February 2020 Ferens Art Gallery, Queen Victoria Square, Carr Ln, Hull HU1 3RA In collaboration with Invisible Dust and Ferens Art Gallery, visual artist and filmmaker Estabrak presents ‘Sea; the remains between’, the l...

Estabrak – Sea; the remains between

Invisible Dust are delighted to be partnering with the National Maritime Museum London for a second time to produce an artist’s residency with photographer Evgenia Arbugaeva. Originating from Tiksi in Russia, Evgenia frequently travels back to her homeland in the Arctic...

Evgenia Arbugaeva – Stories from the Russian Arctic

Opening times:Monday: 9:30am–5pm / Tuesday: 9:30am–8pm / Wednesday: 9:30am–5pm / Thursday: 9:30am–8pm / Friday: 9:30am–5pm / Saturday: 9am–4pm / Sunday: Closed In his commission for ‘Surroundings’ Ghanaian artist photographer Nii Obodai has been inspired by the wa...

Nii Obodai – Of Natural Magic

Hand-coloured maps by contemporary artist, Kathy Prendergast, and teaching maps by female geography students from Bedford College (now Royal Holloway, University of London) are brought together in this exhibition. These maps encourage the viewer to look beyond the surface and ...

Kathy Prendergast – Strata

An immersive adventure for families at the Rotunda. Visitors to the Yorkshire Fossil Festival were invited to join a squad of ground-breaking geologists, the Future Fossils Federation, to investigate how to protect the future environment of Scarborough. They teamed up w...

Future Fossils

‘Wastescape’, by British artist Gayle Chong Kwan, explored New Zealand’s relationship to food and waste in a large-scale, immersive art installation using thousands of plastic milk bottles. In the New Zealand context Chong Kwan’s ‘Wastescape’ explored the effects of the contro...

Gayle Chong Kwan – Wastescape

Brazilian-born artist Rodrigo Lebrun introduces us to the imaginary town of ‘Sunthorpe’ and its popular tourist attractions. His video installation uses an intentional typo, Sunthorpe (Scunthorpe), to express unrealised utopias, current challenges and future aspirations. Lebru...

Rodrigo Lebrun – Green (Screen) Dreams

Invisible Dust is deeply committed to supporting local and regional communities to become ambassadors for climate change. Understanding local environmental issues and learning how to talk about them is the beginning of a journey. ECOde aims is to support children and young peo...

ECOde

‘Shore: How We See the Sea‘ brought together filmmakers, curators and marine scientists together in nine locations across Scotland to inspire, explore and share coastal communities’ responses to Marine Protected Areas two years after the legal designation of MPAs i...

Margaret Salmon and Ed Webb-Ingall – Shore: How We See The Sea

‘Encounters’ was part of the worldwide events on the 250th anniversary of James Cook’s first voyage to the Pacific in 1768. Artists Ahilapalapa Rands and Fiona MacDonald: Feral Practice created new commissions for an exhibition at Whitby Library. ‘The Oceanic Reading Room’ and...

Ahilapalapa Rands and Fiona MacDonald: Feral Practice – Encounters

‘Under Her Eye’ comprised of a high-profile Summit (Friday 1st June) hosted at the British Library Conference Centre, followed by a festival of public art installations and workshops across King’s Cross (Saturday 2nd June) that invited the public to consider and experience cli...

Under Her Eye 2018: Women and Climate Change

A Director’s Lab Presentation from award-winning filmmaker Margaret Salmon on her film for ‘Shore: How We See the Sea’, a touring multi-arts and science project reflecting Scotland’s coastal communities’ responses to Marine Protected Areas. Margaret discussed the researc...

Margaret Salmon – Shore at Under Her Eye

Presented in the British Library Piazza Marquee, artist Gayle Chong Kwan hosted a very special multi-course banquet where guests were invited to taste locally produced food, sip bespoke cocktails, explore sensory rituals and enjoy a range of creative activities. Inspired...

Gayle Chong Kwan – At the Crossroads: Microclimate Sensory Banquet at Under Her Eye

‘Human Sensor LDN’ by artist Kasia Molga, is a large-scale digital and performance artwork that explores Londoners’ daily exposure to air pollution through a combination of cutting-edge wearable technology and dance. Wired up to a series of breathing and air pollution data sen...

Kasia Molga – Human Sensor LDN

Fifteen young women multidisciplinary PhD researchers from universities throughout the UK were selected to take part in a new ‘Under Her Eye’ Fellowship produced by acclaimed arts and science organisation Invisible Dust. This initiative was inspired by ‘Under Her Eye’ 2018 spe...

Under Her Eye Fellowship Programme

‘The Sewerby Cookbook’ combines local contemporary and historical recipes within a collaborative publication looking through the lens of cooking and archiving to explore how our relationship to food and food culture has changed over time. The cookbook was created by internatio...

Ahilapalapa Rands – The Sewerby Cookbook

Human well-being is directly affected by the health of our seas, yet public awareness of many of the challenges facing the marine environment remains low. For decades, researchers have investigated issues such as non-native species, climate change, pollution, overfishing, and ...

Blueprint: Future of Our Seas

‘Milling About’ by Laura Wilson is a film exploring the region’s history of growing grain and producing flour for baking bread. Inspired by the archaeological collections in the museum, Wilson worked with archaeologist Dr. Melanie Giles, University of Manchester, to explore th...

Laura Wilson – Milling About

Invisible Dust produced an exciting programme of artworks for the Scarborough Seafest in 2017. The event included a new film and Q&A on ‘Avoiding Green’ by Phil Coy about local fishermen. Visitors were invited to watch ‘Coral Love Story: Chapter #1’ by Kasia Molga – ...

Onshore at Scarborough Seafest

To coincide with Hull UK City of Culture 2017 ‘Sounding the Sea’ symposium saw artists, writers, historians and scientists come together to celebrate our cultural and physical connections to the sea. The programme included leading authors China Miéville and Philip Hoa...

Sounding The Sea symposium

‘Offshore: artists explore the sea’ examined the many contrasting ways that the sea has shaped our culture, our imaginations and our physical existence through mythical sea monsters, superstition and seaside traditions as well as trade and travel. While inherently without bord...

Offshore: artists explore the sea

The title of this piece ‘Tehom’ is the Hebrew word for the Deep or the Abyss. In August 2016 award-winning fantasy fiction writer China Miéville travelled to Bermuda to follow in the footsteps of American naturalist William Beebe eight decades before. He descended the depths o...

China Miéville – Tehom

Inspired by the walled garden at Normanby Hall and Gardens ‘Microclimate’ was an installation of photo-collages and cucumber straighteners, plus a sensory banquet created by artist Gayle Chong Kwan. The work explored the history of the gardens, seasonality and the politics of ...

Gayle Chong Kwan – Microclimate

Created by Design Futurist Kasia Molga, ‘Human Sensor’, is a performance of wearable costumes that respond to air pollution levels. Wired up to a series of breathing and air pollution data sensors, the dancer’s costumes illuminate in a response to pollution levels – pulsing wi...

Kasia Molga – Human Sensor

‘Rock Music’ by Owl Project is a performance building on the collectives previous experiments with prehistoric technology. Owl Project are interested in how rhythms are the creators of forms and also one of the foundations of music. They have explored making electronic music f...

Owl Project – Rock Music

‘Deep Above’ attempts, through art, to loosen our mental blocks about environmental catastrophe. We appreciate, intellectually, its potentially devastating impact on our planet and yet simultaneously we distance ourselves from feeling this danger, diverting our belief into fan...

Adam Chodzko – Deep Above

Artist Phil Coy undertook a residency at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) Space, the largest Space Science research department in Europe. Coy was interested in the history of ocular vision as it relates to the interrelationship with space based Earth Observation. Hi...

Phil Coy – Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Space Residency

Artist Laura Harrington works within mediums including film, drawing and installation and is interested in the natural world and how humans understand and interact with it. A shared interest in upland environments and peat as a lively and dynamic material, provided the impetus...

Laura Harrington – The Liveliest of Elements, an Ordinary Extraordinary Material

Invisible Dust worked with the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich to exhibit works by artists Mariele Neudecker, Adam Chodzko and Eve Mosher in the museums’ RE·THINK space. It was the first time the artworks were shown in London and the intervention was part of the ‘Invisib...

RE·THINK: Environment

Invisible Dust collaborated with conservation charity Synchronicity Earth on a number of events in 2014 to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species worldwide. This included curating an exhibition...

Biophilia Ball

“The ‘HighWaterLine’ is a spark for conversation and also to start discussing solutions and to bring together all the people who are connected by this line .” – Heidi Quante. Director, Creative Catalysts. ‘HighWaterLine’ was a collaborative project between artist Eve...

Eve Mosher – HighWaterLine Bristol

‘Disappearing Nature: artists supporting life on earth’ presented an artists insight into the peril of endangered plant and animal species around the world, highlighting humankind’s effect and cause. It raised questions around whether nature exists separate from human in...

Disappearing Nature: artists supporting life on earth

‘Ways of Seeing Climate Change’ brought together artists and scientists to explore climate change and gave them the opportunity to plan ideas together on a future funded project. The event included workshops on climate change and action, health, fuel poverty, carbon footprint ...

Ways of Seeing Climate Change Symposium

At the ‘Ways of Seeing Climate Change’ event as part of the Manchester Science Festival, artist Ellie Harrison invited event participants to take part in ‘Anti Capitalist Aerobics’ a ‘revolutionary new exercise programme’. The artwork engages delegates in an energy intensi...

Ellie Harrison – Anti Capitalist Aerobics

‘SUNLIGHT’, Elizabeth Price’s large-scale video installation drew on historic slide imagery of the sun. ‘SUNLIGHT’ was Price’s first solo exhibition in a public gallery since winning the Turner Prize in 2012 and was developed as part of her Invisible Dust residency with the Ru...

Elizabeth Price – Sunlight

‘Rising’ is an extraordinary, waterlogged, dreamlike future for the Great North Run, where runners have adapted physically and psychologically to their increasingly aquatic environment of flash flooding and rising water levels brought about through climate change. As pa...

Adam Chodzko – Rising

‘For Now We See’ was exhibited at the 2013 British Science Festival in Newcastle and at Science in the City EuroScience Open Forum in 2014 in Copenhagen. The work was also shown in Regency House at ‘HOUSE 2013′ for Brighton Festival. “Almost everywhere we were ...

Mariele Neudecker – For Now We See

Mariele Neudeker’s deep sea and arctic works created in collaboration with scientists and the curatorial support of Invisible Dust were shown at HOUSE 2013, Brighton Festival. “The intention was to capture the lifestyle of the Inuit people and deconstruct the elemen...

Mariele Neudecker – Heterotopias and Other Domestic Landscapes

For ‘Breathe’, artist Dryden Goodwin created over a thousand drawings of a five year old boy (his son) inhaling and exhaling air. Combining the drawings to create an animation, this showed the boy’s fluctuating breathing patterns, at some moments regular, and at others more la...

Dryden Goodwin – Breathe

For ‘Bats in Space’, artist Jeremy Deller worked in collaboration with Professor Kate Jones, Chair in Ecology and Biodiversity jointly at University College London and the Zoological Society of London. As part of the project, Deller lead bat walks in London that invited partic...

Jeremy Deller – Bats in Space

London 2012 Olympic artist Faisal Adbu’Allah collaborated with professional athletes and world-class leading scientists to create ‘Double Pendulum’, a film exploring breathing and movement. As part of CREATE 11 festival, over 500 people attended the film premiere, screened out...

Faisal Abdu’Allah – Double Pendulum

Norwich based collective, other/other/other, presented ‘A Good Clean Run’ a project that explored air quality along a city centre route and its effects on residents health. The project aimed to investigate the deterioration of respiratory and pulmonary health caused by poor ai...

other/other/other – A Good Clean Run

Commissioned by Invisible Dust, ‘The Bowthorpe Experiment’, by Townley and Bradby was an evening cycle tour designed to see the future of Norwich. The work was a collaboration between Townley and Bradby, Magnificent Revolution, and Jonathan P Watts that it took place on three ...

Townley and Bradby – The Bowthorpe Experiment

Liz Ballard worked with Dr Kevin Hiscock, a hydrologist from the University of East Anglia who specialises in water pollution. Ballard had been exploring the effects of pollution and climate change in East Anglia, in particular water pollution in the River Wensum that runs thr...

Liz Ballard – Tracing Water

An installation created by internationally acclaimed artists Helen Evans and Heiko Hansen, collectively known as HeHe, involved an unmanned aircraft entering the lower airspace of the city of Norwich in May 2011, targeting the consciences of the people beneath it. ...

HeHe – Plane Jam

“When we visited the site of the Lido, we immediately felt that this is a perfect site for the recreation of the Deep Water Horizon catastrophe, not only because of the ‘Deep Water’ signage on the pool edge, but for its magical, mysterious setting.̶...

HeHe – Is there a horizon in the deep water

To create ‘in clean air we fly’, artist Kaffe Matthews collaborated with 40 children from Shacklewell and Colvestone primary schools in Dalston to explore the possibilities of city transport without pollution and its related health and environmental effects. Together they inve...